Chapter Text
Hopper comes back to grunt an update on Jonathan, and that is what finally breaks up their little sob group.
Robin has run the emotional gambit today and would quite like to be done feeling. Her anger breaks like a storm, quick and fleeting and leaving her empty, the way it always did.
Steve volunteers to help patch Robin up when it becomes clear that Robin's legs are more than a little wobbly, and getting up the stairs to the bathroom is going to be an incredibly embarrassing journey.
Her muscles pull and twinge in protest when they straighten out. Her skin tugs painfully in places and sticks in others with dried sweat and grime. Someone’s blood and dried rain sit tacky on her skin. Her hair, for lack of better term, is gnarly. It becomes clear that a shower is going to be needed, and even scarier, she's not sure her legs can handle it.
But Nancy insists on cleaning her up as they drag her upstairs into the bathroom, and Steve shoots Robin a look that says I don’t know how to argue with Nancy Wheeler on this. Robin shoots back a similarly panicked one that says don’t you dare leave me alone. But Nancy does not back down and Steve's wound dressing abilities start and end at knowing where the first aid kit was stored, so its a very short battle of wills. He gives Robin an apologetic glance. Is this okay? When she nods, he lets himself get chased off.
Alone, Nancy is all business when she appraises Robin. Which is good because also she's just about out of emotions and ready to go back to sleep. “Hey,” Nancy says when she catches her brain drifting. “Stay with me.” So Robin does.
There's a lot of ground to cover and Nancy doesn't even seem to know where to start. She grabs alcohol and cotton balls and a wet towel, lays them out on the counter and then stalls out. Robin’s hip and back and knees ache with the likelihood of bruises and her jeans have never felt so disgusting in her entire life. Everything stings on some level and she entirely lacks the brain power required to decide where to start. They both kind of stare helplessly at each other for a second, before Nancy narrows her eyes with a grimace and decides to tackle her hands first.
The water stings so hard and she can't help the hiss that escapes. Nancy winces like it's her own hands, murmuring low and soothing. In the end, water only does so much and Nancy gently washes shredded skin and uses tweezers to get most of the gravel and dirt out. They both wince as she pours rubbing alcohol over Robin's hands, but she's fast and efficient, if a little heavy handed. She gives a cursory check to Robin’s arms and face, but the next part kind of requires Robin to shed her disgusting clothes.
Robin steels her strength to look away from Nancy's roving eyes. “I can do this part myself, I think.”
“Do what?”
“Shower.” Robin mumbles.
“Robin—”
“It's fine, I— I can do it.”
The pregnant pause after her statement does not belay confidence. “Let me help anyway. …If you're okay with it,” she amends unsurely.
She crouches down to where Robin sits slumped on the toilet lid. “Are you? Okay with that, I mean?” God himself seems intent on punishing her, huh?
“I guess,” She rasps, emotionally numb. It's horrible and also not completely devoid of self punishment to think how Nancy will look back on this if she ever finds out how Robin feels. There is no limit to the shame.
“Okay,” Nancy says gently. “Alright.” She surveys the scene, the million little hurdles to get in and out of the shower. Robin wants to melt into a puddle.
“Why aren't you with Jonathan?"
Nancy freezes a little and makes work finding a towel and turning the faucet to find the right temperature. Robin thinks that maybe she's not going to answer the question, or maybe she just didn't ask it loud enough.
“He's going to be okay.” Nancy shakes her head, chasing some thought away before continuing. “Joyce is with him and there isn't much I can do for him there. Besides… I want to be here for you.”
“You should hate me," Robin whispers. Because it's the truth.
“Hey, look at me.” She does. Nancy burns with a sureness as she levels her gaze, it's entirely too much. But Robin steels herself for whatever Nancy wants to say, she owes her that. She'll take what she’s given.
“I could never hate you.”
Except that, she can't take that.
Robin looks back at the faucet, gushing water in the otherwise stillness of Steve’s bathroom.
“I need you to understand that it's not your fault. What happened with Jonathan.”
Robin is drained of any fight, but her silence must be argument enough.
“He would've made any one of us do it.”
Robin hangs her head in utter defeat. “You should hate me,” she whispers again.
“But I never will,” Nancy promises back.
The shower’s going and the towels are lined up, hot shame sluicing between Robin's shoulders at the next steps. Nancy surveys the work and ducks out, returning with a pair of oversized stolen pajamas. From there, she gingerly helps Robin remove her shirt, and Robin is neatly jolted out of her apathy by the feeling of Nancy's deft fingers on the button of her jeans. Embarrassment paints her hot as the other girl helps her awkwardly shimmy the stiff material down her legs, holding Nancy’s shoulder for balance.
This is stupid, Robin thinks. She could absolutely not handle any more of Nancy’s hands on her, not after the day she’s had. She’ll find some hidden reservoir of energy if it means this situation ends immediately. “I can handle it from here.”
Nancy glances at her distrustfully but even she looks unsure at how to proceed.
“You can barely stand on your own.”
“I’ll be fine Nance.” There's something in her voice and maybe the fact that Nancy's own cheeks are a little pink lets her listen. Nancy is too smart to not eventually figure it out, and Robin is too tired to hide.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure, I’ll be fine. I just think I’ve just had enough—” she stops. Remembering the lack of control, the crack of Jonathan’s bones.
“It's okay.” Nancy's palm hits her shoulder and she can't help the flinch. “I get it, okay? I’ll, um, let you get in the shower.” She busys herself grabbing discarded, bloodied cotton balls and sweeping dirty clothes into a pile. “I’ll just be right outside kay? Just… call if you need anything. Anything,” she repeats with serious eyes, trying to catch Robin's gaze.
Robin stares at the baseboards like it’s her paying job. The paintjob is really good actually, far better than her own bathroom. She approximates a smile and Nancy nods or something, fiddles with supplies on the counter one last time. Suddenly backtracks to lay out a towel on the floor so she doesn't slip upon exiting. After surveying the scene Nancy must realize there's really nothing else to do. She only dallies a moment but Robin still refuses to look at her. Finally, she leaves, shutting the door so softly.
Robin lets out a breath, pushes her face in her hands even as her skin complains. She's going to get stuck here in this position if she doesn't move soon. She can do it. She can do this.
Up is the first step. Her knees complain, her balance is off and her stomach turns for a horrible moment.
But it's only her in her head and her shaky breathing. No thinking, just doing. No thinking, she tells herself. Bra off, underwear off (she almost falls over). God, what a horrible thing for Nancy to rush back in and find her on her ass, skull cracked open and butt naked because she slipped. No thinking she tells herself harshly.
The water, she already knows, is too hot. But when she checks the handle it's solidly in the middle between hot and cold. She usually takes showers as close to boiling as can be humanly achieved. But still, not until the handle points safely to cold, that Robin can convince herself to step in.
...
When she finally convinces her stiff joints to break the light rigor mortis they had fallen into, Robin does feel better. More herself.
Tired and emotionally hung over, but more Robin than she has felt like for quite some time.
Weirdly, she feels like she's washed most of the exastion off, she's still tired and achey but it's more emotional than physical. Anxiety hums, buzzing lightly in the pit of her stomach. On every inhale she cuts the motion just a little bit short in her desperation not to touch it.
She sees herself pulling on a t-shirt, hanging off her shoulders like a clotheshanger. Her hair is dark and stringy. She looks… bad.
Half drowned, hollow and skinny in an unattractive way. Is that really her staring back? It could be a stranger.
I'm only 19 she thinks, dazedly, feeling less than that even. Her whole life she had been waiting for older, for maturer. She had been waiting for that mystical time when she was old enough to get out, and all of a sudden it had passed her by. She was supposed to be at college right now.
Robin looks at the creature staring back and thinks this is it. I'm not going to get any older. 19 suddenly feels feeble.
“Robin?” A voice breaks through her hazy thoughts. Nancy stands behind her, hand hovering over her arm as if afraid to touch. Robin watches her hand in the mirror. The centimeter between their skin. An entire fucking ocean.
“Robin?” It hits her skin now, hot to the touch. She jolts, panicked tone finally registering. “What? Sorry.”
“Are you—” Nancy cuts off. Are you okay feels kind of redundant. “You weren't answering and there was no noise—I’m sorry—I thought…”
“No, it's cool,” Robin croaks. “Sorry. Just... still tired I guess.”
Nancy frowns. “You're freezing.” She says this like it means something else. “Did you take a cold shower?”
For some reason, Robin feels the need to hide it. Shrugs. “I always take cold showers.”
Narrowed eyes find hers in the mirror. Nancy has no way of knowing that it's a blatant lie but somehow she does anyway. She purses her lips, her brain chewing through something she doesn't share. She maneuvers Robin to sit back down on the toilet lid when it becomes obvious Robin’s not moving first.
Her hair drips onto linoleum with a plink.
Plink. Plink.
Nancy notes the state of Robin's knees, and yeah they're pretty rough. Rubbed pink and raw, cut up and oozing in some places even after the shower. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
But Nancy seems to know what she's doing now. Antibiotics sting her skin, and Nancy packs some light gauze over the worst of it, just this side of rough. She doesn't wince when Robin does. Stiffer somehow, more removed. Robin shivers, muscles chattering and feeling small and prodded.
“Are you cold?” The first thing in the last couple minutes. Robin shakes her head and the pursed look grows more severe.
Her hands get the treatment next, then a long gash down the side of her forearm. Some light prodding to the small scratches on her face, but besides a deeper one over her eye brow, Nancy leaves them unpatched. Most of her shin is purple but the skin isn't broken too badly.
Throughout her treatment, the pokes get harder and Nancy grows stormier, clenching her jaw and feeling farther and farther away. Not that Robin was expecting a romantically-charged patching up, but the movies had really led her astray here. It's nothing she doesn't deserve, though. Robin just avoids eye contact and tries to hold back the winces.
Nancy steps back, appraising but not really seeing. “Anywhere else you’re hurt?”
“No, I'm good.” An awkward pause. “Thanks,” she rasps out.
The other girl stops and seems real and close for the first time since something shifted. Robin doesn't know what any of these emotions are, playing out on Nancy's face. Whatever it is, it's a lot. The welded hinge of her jaw seems to be the only thing keeping her together. Robin waits but it's Nancy who looks away first.
“Can you walk okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Let's get you something to eat.”
Nothing sounded worse.
The suckfest continued downstairs. Steve was her only source of comfort. He siddles up next to her the second she emerges, engulfing her in a hug that she's finally able to reciprocate. She digs herself deeper into his embrace. If she could, she thinks she would never come out.
Steve’s always understood her, from Russians and bone saws to high school band and pretty red heads. He’s always been there with an easy smile. But here, this isn't the usual role he plays when everything comes crashing down. There's no cavalierness to him, no bat at his fingertips, he's not even in babysitter mode. He’s barely clinging to normalcy by the whites of his knuckles because, oh yeah, the entire party is watching them.
He won’t be the first to let go but she can't just yet, either. It terrifies her that for the first time since the fourth of July, she might be going somewhere he can’t follow.
She wonders if this is how Max felt, towards the end. Holy crap, did she owe that kid an apology. She did not give her enough credit for keeping her shit together. The party watches her like a prisoner on death row as she’s led to Steve's kitchen table. One of the first time Steve's used it since Max stopped coming over.
Robin remembers it. Can almost see it, with the same yellow light shining down and the mail gathering on the corner. For one brief moment it transports her back, to that time between summer and late fall before everything fell apart. Back when Max was talking to them and doing everything in her power to stay out of the house and her parent’s grieving fights.
Back then, on few precious nights when the boys were busy, Steve would pick them both up from school and his house would be their sanctuary. They existed as one, weird, fucked up family unit, in which Robin helped Max with Math and Spanish while Steve supervised the stove. But Max had pushed them both away long before March came and brought everything down with it.
Now, things were falling apart again.
She can feel the kids watching and she swears their eyes must multiply. Steve awkwardly drags another chair up against hers like his presence alone will scare Vecna away. Nancy busys herself in the kitchen and Hopper thumps down across the table from them. He looks at her warily but not openly hostile. Probably the best they can hope for.
El slides on the other side of the table. Softer than the boys, she reaches out to brush her fingers against Robin's shoulder just once. She knows what's coming.
“How’s Jonathan?” Robin whispers, first amongst the ambient sounds of people moving around the kitchen.
“He’s fine,” Hopper says, “Joyce is with him.”
Robin's eyes flick to Will and the question is plain. “Only one person was allowed back there with him after surgery,” Hop offers, twisting in the creaking kitchen chair to see her gaze. “Hey.” Robin looks at him, gnarled and grizzly and maybe a little giving under his sandpaper gaze. “He’s gonna be alright. We’ve got to focus on the here and now.” He sighs. “There’s a lot we have to figure out.”
Nancy slams a cupboard too hard and everyone flinches.
Robin nods. She's not sure what else to do. She clears her throat. “What happened at the Squawk. I didn’t mean to hurt Jonathan. …Please tell him that, when he wakes up. That I’m sorry.”
Will nods. “He’ll forgive you.” He says in that soft, open way of his.
Robin can’t look at any of them. She feels like her entire chest is trying to turn inside out.
“Start from the top,” Hop says gently. ”Tell us what you remember.”
It's quiet as Robin fidgets. “It’s kind of blurry. I—I don’t know if…” Steve’s hand finds hers in her lap, stopping her where she’d started picking at her nails.
The party waits. Robin breathes deep just once and tries to fortify herself against the memories.
“I’d been having a headache all day. I really didn’t think anything of it, just I thought it was leftover from that sinus infection a couple weeks ago. I…" She pauses. "It was just a normal day,” she whispers. No one moves. The kitchen waits, untrusting. “And then Will started feeling Vecna's presence. Everyone freaked out and we all ended up outside.” She swallows, voice fraying. “My headache got really bad, and then…”
Silence sits heavy.
“I radioed Hopper and El,” Dustin offers, “Before you got out there, I mean. We all—”
“Cool it, kid,” Hop interrupts, eyes never leaving Robin.
“I’m just—”
“I wanna hear it from her first.” It’s firm.
Dustin scoffs and Steve shifts to glare at Hopper. “If she doesn't remember, she doesn't remember.”
“Well she didn’t say that, did she?” He leans back in the creaking chair. The blackness from the glass door makes her feel exposed.
Hopper addresses the whole room, level and quietly authoritative. “I don't want someone else's version of the events, I've already heard them. What she knows is all we have right now. We can't afford to miss any of it.”
“Now,” he leans forward slightly in his chair to lace his hands on the table. “Try to describe it. Everything you remember, feelings, vision, smell, all of it. Think carefully. Anything could be important,” he says softer, almost understanding.
But she can't think with them all staring at her. She cranks her face to the ceiling, shuts her eyes and pushes on them with her hands.
“When you got outside,” Steve prompts, “how did you feel?”
“I don’t know.” Her voice is so raspy it almost breaks. “I felt sick. It was all so loud, everyone was talking at once. I… I don't know.” She squeezes her eyes, thinking. They were all depending on her. “It’s blurry, I'm sorry.”
Hopper breathes harsh through his nose, but his tone doesn't change. “That’s not gonna cut it, kid.”
Robin felt sick. She knew they needed it, but fuck. She swallowed. They would find out soon enough. They deserved to know what they were up against. And she probably wouldn’t make it through this alive, so screw it, right?
El’s hand finds hers, something hard burning behind her eyes. “Not your fault,” she says, firmly. Robin tries to breathe steady. It takes a moment.
“You looked at me," Will says softly into the ticking emptiness of the kitchen. She tenses at the sound of his voice. Did she look at him? She… the flash of recognition. She shifts away from El.
“I recognized you. Not as Will though, if that makes sense. I mean I know you, obviously, but. It was… weird. Like I recognized you as this other person. For a second you were William, to me, instead of Will.”
Hopper shifts and she feels the room go uneasy. “How could he be William instead of Will?” Steve asks, “Isn’t that the same person?”
“It felt different.”
“Like a different set of memories,” Will says. Silence settling on a razor's edge.
Robin winces. “Not memories. At least not in the beginning. It was just… feeling.”
“Feeling.” Hopper repeats. He says it like a statement, giving nothing away.
“I…” it hits her in flashes, cold amusement, disdain. The way Jonathan had said something to Nancy and her hatred burning through her. “It’s like… everything kind of faded away. All the noise and the panic. Like turning the volume down. …It felt good,” she admits quietly, “My headache, all of the anxiety. All of a sudden it was all just gone.”
“I didn’t know what was happening,” She rasps.
“It was like I was in a dream, I felt things that weren't mine. Or, at first I didn’t know that they weren't mine.” She exhales, trying to expel the terror at the memory of it. “Jonathan saw me. He knew something was wrong. I thought he was going to yell or… I don’t know. So I stopped him. I just—squeezed. And then all of a sudden I was choking him. I don’t know how it happened. I didn’t even know what I was doing.”
“You were smiling," Will says in the silence.
“I… I was mad at him,” she whispers. “I was so mad at him.”
“Vecna was mad at Jonathan?” Hopper asks.
“No. Me. I was.”
Hopper blinks. “So walk me through this.” He says like they’re talking about lunch plans, voice not leaning one way or another. “Did you want to hurt him?”
She shakes her head over the lump in her throat and then she stops, swallowing. Jerkily, she nods
“Why?” He asks evenly.
She can't—she just stares at the table. What can she say?
“For something stupid.”
No one says anything. Panic pricks her, makes her mouth open up to let a lie roll out. “We were arguing about the AC at the station yesterday. Vecna, he just took what I was feeling and dialed it all the way up. I wasn't thinking, I just knew that, that I could…” her rhythm wanders, throat closing off.
Hot embarrassment flows through her, here she was in front of the kids, literal 16 year-olds, and she can't hold back the tears. She pushes a shaky breath out and in, shoves it down. Everyone has the decency not to comment.
“I could picture it before it happened. I knew what it would feel like… what it would sound like when his arm…” she sucks in a breath. They need to know, she told herself. “It was satisfying in a weird way. It felt good. I’m sorry.”
Steve's hand settles gently on her shoulder and she almost jumps out of her skin. She shoves her eyes into the palms of her hands again and breathes. The story continues rolling right out of her chest.
“It was like being in a dream, I wasn’t thinking about consequences or like, real life. But it wasn't even like he was making me, most of the time, which was the worst part. We were almost, …it was like we were the same person, thinking the same things. I didn’t care what happened to Jonathan because he didn’t. But obviously I care, I mean right now I care about what happens to Jonathan, I just … I wasn’t entirely me.” She swallows, hearing how it sounds out loud.
“You were thinking the same things.” Hopper repeats warily.
“Yeah.” Robin stares a hole in the table
“Were you… Christ. So you were in control when you had him up in the air?”
“Kind of. He took things I was feeling, like my own feelings I mean, and… in the moment I wanted…” Her voice cracks as she stares at the notch in the wood in front of her.
“I don’t want to hurt anyone,” she whispers.
“When I was a spy, he made me hurt the soldiers,” WIll says, in a tone so low it nearly matches her whisper. “I didn't want to but he made me.” He sounds choked up, “it's not your fault, Robin—”
“But it is! It is!” She bursts out, “no matter how much we say it wasn't it was my fault, in the moment I wanted to hurt him. I had the choice not to and I did! I felt all of it! I—”
“—Okay, let's calm down.” Hopper emphasizes the words
Robin realizes her breathing is too rapid, she’s angry, she realizes. She wants to shake them until they understand without her having to say it. That it had been her fault, that— she gasps for breath, panic hitting full force
“Breathe. Hey—hey Bucks, look at me.” Steve pulls her toward him. “Just calm down, that's it. Breathe with me. He’s not—it’s okay.” The clink of ceramic cuts through her panic, Nancy dropping a plate in front of her. Robin stares at it, unable to look away and Nancy’s hand hovers over her shoulder.
A peanut butter and jelly sandwich with the crusts cut off.
No one had ever cut the crusts of a sandwich off for her, she'd always just made them herself. Her parents had taught her early that self sufficience was a cardinal virtue. Looking at the two pieces of bread, something in her wanted to cry.
“It’s okay. Hey Robs, he’s not here right now, okay?” Steve’s saying as her breathing slows. Robin stares at the sandwich. Her mouth prickles with the illusion of tacky peanut butter. Her stomach curdles at the thought of eating.
Hopper watches her, face completely unreadable, “okay,” he agrees with no one. “Let’s take a break.”
...
Hopper watches her as she sits back down, chair scrapping over the sound of hushed conversation. Dustin, Mike, Will, Lucas, they all congregate in the kitchen, splayed out over windowsills or leaning on countertops. The Harrington house is big, but not even it was meant to accommodate 8 teenagers and the former chief of police. Nancy stands behind Robin like a guard dog, all 5 '5 of her and most of it hair.
“Hey.” Hopper’s voice is gentle and scuffed. “We're gonna figure this out okay?”
She looks him in the eyes, tight and gray ever since Russia. He really needs to trim his beard. But above all she can see the worry in his face, etched deep. “Sure.”
“Let's focus on the end of it," he offers diplomatically. “Will said you lost control, towards the end?”
Okay, she can do this.
“I was…” the sound of bone snapping echoes crisply in her ears. “After Jonathan’s leg broke, when his bone, like, stuck out of him. It triggered this memory. That night at the mall, when El had that thing in her leg.” A collective wince travels around the room, skipping only Hopper.
“Um yeah,” she coughs. “Anyways—Vecna he was, in my head, right? But there was something else that was part of him… in a way. But it also had its own conscience, separate from him.”
You could’ve heard a pin drop.
“That… that thing, It’s feelings weren't quite… human? Not like Vecna’s were. And this thing… I could feel it was interested in the memory of El. It was like I was back there,” she says, voice drifting. “Back at the mall. I was standing there, watching Jonathan with the knife… I was re-experiencing it, the thing tagging along, watching with me. But then… then the memory changed. It flipped.” Her stomach curled, bile creeping. She shuts her eyes hard and opens them again, not willing to see what would play behind them. “All of a sudden I wasn’t me. I was the thing in El’s leg. Squirming away from the knife. …I felt what it felt,” she whispers, hushed.
“It freaked me out. I was confused, less cohesive with him I think.”
“Did it not want you there?” Will asks. “Did it try and kick you out?”
“No, it… it was like it wanted me to see. Kind of like an offering? You know, you show me something, I show you something.”
Hopper rubs his hand through his unkempt beard.
“I didn't understand why I didn’t like it, that it… grossed me out. It was much more animal than Vecna.”
“The Mind Flayer.” Lucas says.
“Yeah, that.”
“This memory,” Dustin asks excitedly. “Could you see the hive mind? What did it feel like?”
“Dude,” Steve reprimands.
“It’s science, Steve!”
“No, I couldn't see.” She glances at El who looks uncomfortable. “I could feel… the sensory stuff. I could feel what it wanted.”
“What did it want?” Lucas this time.
“To stay. To infect.”
Dustin makes a noise of exclamation. When Steve glares—“Sorry, sorry, it’s just, isn't that what Billy said to El in that vision in the cabin? You’re going to let us stay?”
“We already knew that,” Mike complains
“Well, I know! I’m just making connections,” Dustin says. “You need multiple pieces of evidence to support a hypothesis.”
“We don’t need a hypothesis," Lucas says, annoyed. “We already know what it wants, otherwise why would it bother with any of this?”
“Hey! Hey!” Hopper interjects, sensing a squabble building. “We’re staying focused.”
Dustin mutters about the scientific method and something about evidence. Everyone ignores him.
“Okay, when you came out of the memory, Will was able to push him out?”
Robin pushes both hands against her eye sockets again, trying to find the words to explain. “I don’t know. I think? The memory is what made me realize that what I was feeling wasn’t me. That something was wrong. But It was like waking from a dream but into another one. I was aware of both of them, and we were less cohesive, but it wasn’t like I had control.”
“Kind of like wrestling for the driver's seat,” Dustin offers.
“Yeah, sort of. But mostly I was just confused. And then I felt Will in my head, uh, your presence I guess.” she says, eyes flicking to the boy who looked so much like his brother. “You were angry at him.”
“When did you know he was gone?” Hopper, again.
“I didn’t, I was just suddenly alone. Like waking up.”
“If the memory weakened his hold,” Nancy starts thoughtfully, “Well, you describe it as almost dreamlike, right? Say the memory woke you up, sort of. Let you access some part of your brain he was trying to cut you out of—what if memory acts like music? Lets you fight him?”
“It was more like I was just trying to find my footing, trying to stay upright.”
“But you remembered yourself.” Nancy presses.
Robin shrugs. “I guess. But I don’t know if I would’ve been able to throw him off without someone else pushing.”
“Memories were how we were able to reach Will,” Mike says, hushed.
Dustin pipes up thoughtfully from where he leans on the counter. “We’ve been treating this like it’s just another Vecna attack. But Mike is right, it sounds closer to how Will describes being taken by the mind flayer. Only this time, it was Vecna.” Dustin frowns. “But this isn’t how he attacked Max. He can't be in two people's heads at once. If he was after a gate he would’ve just used Robin, not used her to attack Jonathan.”
“Your nose was bleeding like El’s does,” Mike says to her, “did that happen before, when Max had visions?”
“No,” Lucas said softly. “It didn't.”
“Nothing about this makes sense,” Steve complains. “Maybe it was just random. A one-and-done, new, Vecna attack.”
“No.” El said. “I’ve checked everyone, he hasn’t opened this connection with anyone else. It is like part of him is still there.” She searches for the right word. “Dormant.”
“If he needed a mental connection, why not just go for Will, why make a new one?” Nancy spits. Mike glares at his sister.
“I would have noticed with Will.” El says quietly. Eyes flicking to Robin, hooded with guilt.
“If this is like when Will was flayed, then we know how to fix it.” Mike says firmly, eyes narrowed at Nancy. “We burn him out. Like we did before.”
Nancy glares. “Burning it out nearly killed Will.”
“Do we really have that much of a choice?”
“You weren't there,” she nearly spits. “The mind flayer woke up fully during Will’s exorcism, he did things his body physically shouldn’t have been able to do.” She pauses, matching her brother’s scowl. “If this is Vecna, and he wakes up in the middle of it—If we try and back him into a corner while he’s possessing Robin— that isn’t a fight we would win.”
The kitchen holds its breath as the siblings stare daggers at each other. Will’s eyes look far away.
“So… what’s the solution?” Steve asks in the standoff, head whipping to each party member. “If we can’t burn it out, what? We just give her music? And hope that keeps him away?”
“Who knows if music would even work.” Lucas mutters.
“Okay lets work with what we do know,” Dustin starts, trying to get ahead of the downwards spiral. “Vecna is flaying Robin.” He frowns. “Sort of. He’s using her to attack, which makes a lot more sense than the gate theory. And you even said that you felt the Mindflayer within him, like a parasite, which confirms Vecna is part of the Hive mind. But.” he frowns. “You're not behaving like Billy. Vecna was literally using his powers through your body. Whatever he's doing to you, it's more like… you're a conduit. The way Will was.”
“Instead of a spy, you’re a soldier. You can attack.” Lucas suggests.
“If she’s a spy, or a conduit, shouldn’t she be able to see him too? The whole true sight thing?” Mike points out.
“Trying to spy back didn’t necessarily work in our favor,” Hopper mutters, more to Mike than anyone else.
“Have you seen anything? Anything Hive mind-y?” Lucas asks anyway.
“No, like I said, I never saw any of his plans. All of my nightmares have been just me related, I think.”
“Wait, how long have you been having these nightmares?” Dustin asks excitedly “Have you been having visions like Max?”
“No I—”
“I haven't seen you have any nose bleeds, outside of when he attacked,” Steve adds while Dustin says—
Hey!” Hopper shouts, “one, at a damn, time.” He looks at Robin, reestablishing the question. “You said you’d been having headaches—”
“Vecna-aches” Dustin whispers. Lucas smacks him.
“Jeez, sorry.”
“—and nightmares,” Hopper powers through.
“Your nightmares,” Will cuts in suddenly, “in any of them were you not yourself?”
Horrible realization dawns on her. She looks sharply at the boy, sees some of her own desperation reflected back back. “Yes,” she breathes.
Nancy draws in a harsh breath behind her. Robin distantly notes the rest of the party locking onto her and Will. “In my nightmare earlier, at the end I thought I had woken up, only I hadn’t. I was in the Upside Down, I was covered in those vines, the way Vecna was. But I wasn't just covered in them, they were like, a part of me, I was hooked up to them.”
“Like how Vecna is when he attacks?” Steve asks.
“No… it was more like, it felt like they were permanent. Like they were keeping me alive. I—Vecna—Me as Vecna,” She shakes her head. “I felt really weak, horrible, even. If it was real, I don’t think he can survive without them.”
“Like life support,” Lucas says.
“Yeah, that's actually the perfect analogy for that.”
“And you're sure it was a now-memory and not just part of the nightmare?” Hopper prods, she shrugs. “I don't know for sure. But it felt… real. Different from the rest of it. It was awful,” she admitted hoarsely.
“It makes sense,” Steve addresses Hop. “I mean we flambed him. Nancy pumped him full of lead, and he fell out of a three story window. If he did survive, he definitely would’ve needed some serious medical attention.”
“Shit!” They all turn to glare at Dustin. He looks up from the table where he had been staring off, wide eyed. “Okay, you're not going to like this but, hear me out. Vecna—not the mind flayer—has searched Robin out, and attempted to flay her. We haven’t seen him do that before—so,” he asks rhetorically, “why now?”
“We’ve been calling it possession, but what if… what if we’re not far off.” He swallows, looking at the party grimly. Raising a hand, he starts ticking off fingers. “His body is dying. He’s blurring their thoughts, showing her memories, using his powers in her body. Vecna doesn't have a whole lot to gain from a spy, or even a soldier. …But he does stand to gain a body on this side of the barrier. Guys—what if he's looking for a new host?”
No. Cold fear washes over her, because even as Dustin debates the finer points and the room explodes into noise (“think about it!—how would he even—doesn’t matter—but Robin's a girl!—), Robin just stares at her sandwich, one bite taken out of it.
Because what Dustin's saying makes sense. The blur between them as she broke Jonathan's wrist. The way El called her an open house, he likes it cold. And the slow, sinking feeling. The knowledge she was painfully avoiding—that if she reached deep down, there was this awareness that she didn't want to touch.
Nancy's hand hit her shoulder, shocking her back into the sea of noise.
“—think about it! It would explain why we have been laying low! He's recovering, hooked up to the hive mind but it's only barely keeping him alive! If his body was dying but he still had enough strength, mentally, to I don’t know, find a host—”
“No, no, no,” Steve says “you can’t just… up and move! That’s not how brains work! People can’t do that, even psychos with super powers!!"
“He's a wizard from another dimension that can attack people with his mind, Steve! Is it so far-fetched that he could completely possess them too?”
“Okay, you're done Henderson. It's not funny anymore. No, it's gotta be—it’s more likely that he's just using people and turning them into weapons.”
“But why not just send demogorgons after us then—”
Robin pushes from the table shakily and everyone watches as she stumbles up, “Robin—”
“Just need some water,” she mumbles. Nancy grabs her hand and steers her away from the table, drags her to the sink, and places a water glass in her hand. Robin states at it unblinkingly. “Drink,” Nancy says. Robin drinks it like she's not there, absent mindedly fulfilling the order. Water dribbles down her chin and she barely even has it in her to be embarrassed. Nancy takes the glass from her. “Come on.”
She leads Robin into the living room, a brief respite even though they can still hear the arguing. Robin kind of follows her, blindly feeling herself be guided down until she's sitting on the arm of the couch. Nancy's hand on her jaw pulls her attention, features narrowed in full focus, the only thing in her view.
“Breathe with me.”
It takes a second, but she manages to get it under control, feeling the hand slip from her face. Nancy watches her, eyes scanning over her. Like if she stares hard enough, she might find that monster poking through.
“Well this sucks, huh?” Robin attempts to joke, smile weak.
“We don't know for certain what his plans are.”
“We know he's going to come back. Whether it's just for a quick ‘hi’ or to come back and use me like his own personal muppet, we don’t know!"
“If he comes back, El will kick him out,” Nancy comforts, completely glossing over that trainwreck.
“And how many people will I hurt before she can?” Robin pitches desperately.
Nancy stares at her, looking as wound up as a pitcher with the bases loaded. Robin despaired. Now she knew she was going crazy, she was using Steve’s sports metaphors.
“We won't let him,” Nancy says, all tempered ferocity.
“Nance,” she pleads.
“I mean it, Robin. He can't have you.”
“It's too late," she whispers. “No.” And Robin knew how Nancy created these mantras, believed in them wholeheartedly. It was the only way to stay sane, believing you held some sort of control over it all.
“It doesn't matter,” Nancy says fiercely. “None of it does, it doesn't matter what he’s doing, it only matters how we stop him.” The pressure of her fingers has steadily increased, digging into Robin’s wrist before she seems to remember herself and lets go. Robin feels almost bereft without the anchor.
“What other nightmares have you had? What does he show you.” Robin balks. “Nothing! Nothing you haven’t seen before.” Nancy’s eyes narrow. “Tell me.”
“…”
“Robin,” Nancy prods.
“Nancy please, you just dragged me out of interrogation.”
“What. Does. He. Show you.”
“The mall! Russians! Stupid bone saws and big spiders! She throws up her hands. “Who cares, okay? Why does it matter? It’s too late.”
“Mike is right when he says the spying is a two way street. If he’s been in your head, you’ve been in his. He has to have shown you something, some weakness, his plans, something! Some way to defeat him!”
“Nance, he hasn’t. I don’t get those hive-mind dreams, he doesn't show me any of that stuff, okay? He just gives me nightmares, Or—or weird dreams.”
“Tell me,” she demands. Snapping “Robin!” When she doesn't respond quick enough.
“I— I'm not sure. It’s probably nothing.”
Nancy’s glares could melt steel. “Okay, okay jeez. I guess I've been having this one recurring dream, but it’s really dumb.” Nancy’s eyes are hungry for information. It simultaneously feels good to have her focus and fighting the panic knee jerk reaction her attention always brings. And then it's also mixed around with the fear that she might throw up if she thinks too hard about any of this, so. Overall it’s a wonderful combination. “In these dreams I was like El. I could, you know, move objects and stuff.”
“Were they now-memories?”
“No, I was definitely me. I would just be in my room, but I would flick the lightswitch without touching it, or make a book fly. Sometimes I’d hold a bunch of random objects in the air.”
Nancy's eyes narrow.
Robin holds her hands up defensively. "I told you it was stupid!"
“Were the things actually moved when you woke up?”
“Shit um,” Robin thinks back, her stomach slowly dropping out. With a dry mouth she admits, “my room has been a little messier than usual—I’m not saying it’s for sure, though!”
Nancy looks almost manic, dragging out all the clues and placing them on the board. “Anything specific! Your records out of order, your books moved—did you wake up with blood on your sheets?” Robin is sure she's going to hyperventilate. “Nance. Oh fuck.”
“What?” she snaps.
“I didn't think anything of it. I mean, it's weird but my um, my pillowcases have been disapearing? And I thought I was just going crazy or like, taking them off in my sleep or something, but what if…"
“What if he was practicing.” Robin nods, some sort of begging expression on her face for Nancy to tell her no, that was crazy. “Fuck!” Nancy’s frantic energy seemed to bleed out of her all at once. She looks away, swearing. “You were getting nosebleeds.” She muttered, “he hid them on purpose, so we couldn’t do anything… he planned it like that. God fucking dammit!”
Nancy pinches her nose, steadying herself. Her voice still comes out tight and not all the way put together. “Okay, have you had any other nightmares in the Upside Down? Where you’re Vecna, or maybe something else?”
“No, just the one.” Robin’s neck prickles, even though it’s not cold.
“Where was he, in that now-memory?” Robin shrugs, helplessness playing across her face. “I wish I could tell you. I really do.” The crawls hadn’t turned up anything, the Creel mansion was just another dilapidated building on the other side, the only thing weird about it being the hole in the attic and an abnormally high vine density.
At their most desperate, In the beginning, as the military rolled in and the storms were new and terrifying, Hopper had suited up for a crawl and burned the place down, sneaking through the rift during the cover of a spore storm. Fire had been unwilling, but it had caught. They had heard the screaming vines over the staticky radio, Will safely sedated on the couch. The Creel house burned and nothing had come running, not a single bat.
“I’m sorry. I couldn’t even tell if it was a human structure, there was too much slime. The walls were practically alive. I was so preoccupied with the vines stringing him up, I—” Robin cuts off. “It wasn’t pleasant.” She whispers, far off.
“How weak is he?”
Robin ran a hand through her hair absentmindedly before she realized what she was doing and stopped. Another of Steve’s stolen stress habits. “What Dustin said makes sense. I think—I think he’s dying. It felt awful. Those vines, they were pumping shit into me—I mean him—and he didn’t even have the strength to breath, or move.”
“Fuck!” Nancy nearly kicks the ottoman.
“Jeez what—?”
“How close is he? To dying??”
“I don’t know! Maybe he won’t! Maybe those vines will keep him alive forever, pumping him full of creepy mindflayer juice. Or maybe he'll die tomorrow, I don't know! What are you…?”
Nancy rubs her face, blinking back actual tears. “We were so close. So goddamn close,” she whispers.
“Nance no, you—we all did the best we could. You shot him out of a three-story window for Christ's sake.”
“And it wasn't enough.”
Robin swallows. “That's not on you, Nance. That's not your fault.” Nancy laughs hollowly. Stares like she's somewhere else, and Robin hates it.
“Hey,” Robin whispers, trying to pull her back. “When he does show up again, maybe you can find a way to trap him in my head, or have El distract him. Burn him out of me, the way you did with Will. Maybe that the mental strain will finally kill him.”
“It could kill you,” Nancy says harshly, eyes alight with fury. Briefly, an image of Nancy pointing her sawed off flashes before Robin’s eyes.
“Better than the alternative,” Robin whispers.
“No, there are too many variables,” she says hotly. “Last time we baited him—”
She cuts off, anger and grief sparking off an open wound. “No. We can't let him back at all. What we need is to break the connection.” Nancy purses her lips, more frustrated than Robin’s ever seen her. Reaching some capacity limit from not being able to do anything. Nancy shakes her head, desperately trying to think.
“...If only we could just—” all of a sudden her eyes flash bright, curly head snapping to the kitchen.
Nancy bursts through the entry way, breaking apart Will and Dustin who are deep in argument about smoke, or something. Dustin squwaks as he gets jostled but Nancy doesn't care, she bullies her way between them until she has Will’s complete attention.
“Will— you said in Lenora you couldn’t feel the hive mind, right? You were completely cut off?”
“Yeah,” he agrees, unsure in the face of Nancy’s intensity.
“If we get Robin far enough away, do you think it could be similar?”
“We could make him loose signal!” Dustin bursts in, face dawning with understanding.
“We could save Robin,” Nancy agrees. In Robin's chest, something suspiciously like hope latches onto the idea like a lifeline.
“The only problem,” Lucas interjects from across the counter, “is that I think you’re forgetting that we live in the only town in America with more security than your average federal prison.”
“But if we could,” Nancy argues to the whole kitchen now, “get her far enough away that Vecna couldn't touch her—maybe we might even be able to outlast him. Prevent him from finding another host.”
“How would we get past the fences?” Mike asks.
They all turn to Hopper leaning against the wall, hoping against hope as he chews on the idea. When he speaks, it’s not to shoot it down. He says it consideringly, like maybe it could actually work.
“Let me call Murray.”